Pran Pandit
Dotted over the surface of globe including various parts of India are lakhs of members of a hapless community who were forced out of their home-land more than 26 years ago. The community’s identity is unique and it is a distinct ethnic and cultural group. The community has a continued history from the age of the pit and cave dwellers to the present, more than 5,000 years old. The community are the progeny of the realm of sculpture who personified the natural objects and imparted to them life and vividness; their ancestors have been known to outsiders as shastra-shilpina (architects) on account of their well known skill in building and the outstanding religious fervor that found expression in the building of temples and iconography; and the ruins of temples and shrines in the home-land of the community, ravaged by the vandalism of man and the Nature, are the faded aroma of their past. They have an enviable record of having attained heights by their achievements in the fields of literature, Science, Art, Music, Architecture, Mathematics, Astronomy, Administration and Religion (spirituality). The community did never interfere with any of the faiths, be it Buddhism, Islam or any other faith. The members of the community are now living as refugees in their own country and elsewhere for more than a quarter of century. The psychological turbulence of loosing the home and hearth is rampant in the minds of every member of the community as they are suffering a sense of powerlessness and pointlessness and are uncertain about their future even after their generations have perished during the period of their exile, away from their home-land ; and they appear to be helpless to the gory dance of death and destruction in their home-land where the death on prowl has been claiming the human lives each day and the bloody tragedy has struck virtually every family, irrespective of cast, creed and religion. The hapless community is Kashmiri Pandit community (KPs) ? the aborigines of Kashmir ? known as ‘Bhattas’ in their home-land. History is replete with the incidents of trouble, bewilder-ness, and crudest kind of persecution and violation of human rights meted out to this community that led to the dispersal out of their home-land on many occasions until the latest that came about in 1989-90.
The question is: Why did KPs become casualty and for what fault of theirs were they hounded out of their land of ancestors? And, the answer is straight-forth: Out-break of terrorism and violence in Kashmir was not a sudden eruption; over the years, zealots wanted to put a death knell to the cult that had become a popular faith in Kashmir and they developed intolerance and hostility towards this community, who had adopted the teachings and humanistic traditions of the great Sufis and Rishis open-heartedly. The religious, political and cultural intolerance made systematic and subtle inroads into the home-land of this community, the manifestations of which started becoming clearly visible right from the division of the Indian sub-continent; and Kashmir’s unique cultural identity and heritage of the centuries-old blend of the world’s greatest religions and cultures— Hinduism, Budhism and Islam— embodied in the benign Sufi teachings of humanity and tolerance were distorted into the most malign and virulent form by the fundamentalists to suit the agenda of their mentors and collaborators. The miniscule minority in a muslim-dominated state came to be recognized as the symbols of Indian nation by the zealots. In late 80’s, with a view to spawning irrational rhetoric and to weaken the foundations of Kashmiriyat, the new-born country that came into existence after the division of the sub-continent, succeeded in exporting ‘terror’ packaged into ‘political ideology’ in the peaceful land of sufis and saints, the home-land of the community; and, with this, a reign of terror was unleashed by the foreign mercenaries, band of guerillas and villains of peace and an atmosphere of xenophobic frenzy and feeling of insecurity was created on the earth’s paradise. In a situation of invisible government and the visible terrorist, the community members became the causality and were forced to leave their home-land, only to save their lives and the honor and dignity of the women-folk at the cost of their homes, hearths and whatever property they had. And, for the present exodus, they paid the heavy price for being ‘Indian nationalists’. The only and the only fault of this community was that they were ‘Indian nationalists’ by the core.
The hallmark of the genius of this community has been that it did not allow itself to extinct even in the face of grave and imminent threats to their very existence following their previous ousters from the home-land; it survived and coped with the exigencies during various exoduses; retained their identity, culture and life-style in the past even when it was reduced to just eleven families.
The members of the displaced community are not starving; and they have faced well the challenges thrown up by their present displacement. They are away from their home-land and are scattered; the loss of home and the hearth haunts them like a nightmare; and they believe that the threat to their unique identity and culture could, with each day passing by, lead to the depravation of their home-land and consequent degradation of the community’s unique identity and culture. The community members are longing to return to their home-land and to live there without fear of oppression and persecution, with honor and dignity in an atmosphere of peace and tranquility as members of the Kashmir civil society. To facilitate their return and rehabilitation, the community had pinned its hopes to the governments, both at centre and the state. The successive governments have failed miserably in discharging the moral, ethical and constitutional responsibility despite lapse of more than 26 years; and the community continues to live as refugees in their own country and elsewhere. All these years, the successive governments, both at the centre and the state, have been making ad-hoc and half-hearted efforts in the direction of the return and rehabilitation of the community in exile. For their narrow political compulsions, assumptions, attitudes and convictions, none of the governments looked at the plight of the hapless community objectively and dispassionately nor did they rise up to fight the vested interests which were becoming an impediment in the way of their honorable return and rehabilitation. Despite completion of nearly two years in the office by the present NDA government at the centre, nothing tangible on ground has been done to address the issue of the return and rehabilitation of hapless community. Although the community members have not lost faith in the present Government at the Centre, led by Narendra Modi, and, they still have a belief, firmly rooted, that nationalistic Modi is not going to betray their faith, yet, with each day passing by; their hopes of returning to home-land fade further.
Any human race would perish unless it changed its manner of existence. The community must grasp and understand well that many of their generations have perished in exile and they are on the cross road of their future. The community needs to equip themselves to realize the vision of Kashmir of their dreams. The displaced and scattered KPs have no other means of preserving themselves than the formation of a sum of forces great enough to overcome the resistance; and for this, they have to bring into play by means of a single motive power and cause to act in concert. For its own vitality and survival, the community needs to shun away the tendencies of their cowed conformity and slavish submission and blind acceptance of dead formulas; and fully and fearlessly discuss all implications and the manner of their return to home-land. The community will have to determine goals and resort to more aggressive approach to bringing the attention of the GOI as also the other power corridors to their demands; they shall have to speak with one voice and not merely speak but act as one, and that shall make the community a force to reckon with. The community needs to attract the attention of the international community for the gross violation of Human Rights suffered by it as India is a signatory to the international declaration on Human Rights. “It is not possible for the sublime clay to get cold which has in it the fire of Chinar”, reminds KPs the Shair-e-Mashriq, Iqbal, who proudly claimed himself as the progeny of Saproos (a KP family).
(The author is a retired Superintendent of Police)
( feedback excelsior@gmail.com)
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